His Secrets
by Fictionjane
Summary: AU – One late night in the library, Hermione stumbles across a secret so dark, she could tell no-one, especially not her friends. How is she to spend each day living and breathing this lie? What makes it worse, someone else knows, they know that she knows
1. Discovery

His Secrets: Chapter One

Summary: AU – One late night in the library, Hermione stumbles across a secret so dark, she could tell no-one, especially not her friends. How is she to spend each day living and breathing this lie? What makes it worse, is that someone else knows, and he knows, she knows.

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Chapter One: Discovery.

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The day was dull, that was all Hermione could say as her attention wandered from her Arithmancy lessons. Lesson after lesson, essay after essay; surely there would be more enjoyment than this. But no, she told herself, resting her head against her textbook, giving up the charade of paying attention to Professor Vector.

Time must have gotten away from her, because before she knew it, the end of class bell rang throughout the school, bring her out of her reverie. Vector stood at the head of the class, the picture of disappointment. Hermione dumped her books quickly into her bag, retreating from the room. She would catch up the work later in the library, for now, she was going to be late for Potions, and she had four floors to get through. She set off at a run.

As she expected, Snape chewed her raw. A detention, just what she needed. She quickly took her place beside Harry and Ron, cheeks still flushed from the down-stair sprint.

"You're always late," Ron muttered to her, making Hermione glare. He knew full well she had a class on the fifth floor before this.

Snape hovered over them the rest of the lesson, determined to find a fault in their work. Ron and Harry unfortunately bore the brunt of their obvious mistakes, always nervous when Snape hovered While Hermione concentrated hard, not giving Snape the satisfaction to make her day any worse, or to give her any extra homework; unlike Harry and Ron's foot-long essay on the seventeen uses of brown snake scales in antidotes.

Finally, the end of the class drew near, and she was almost home free, her attention began to wane and suddenly her potion turned a violent shade of red, not the grass green she had been aiming for. Snape's face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw her mistake; she had accidentally used two pinches of batswing powder, and not Ylang-rot. Her stomach clenched as Snape pounced.

"Miss. Granger, tell me," Snape drawled, a wicked smirk spreading across his face, "Why exactly is your potion vermilion, when the board distinctly says green?"

Scowling, Hermione said nothing, not wanting to give Snape the satisfaction.

Snape was not perturbed from his prey. "Is it that you do not know, Granger?"

Hermione almost physically twitched at the insult. Both she and Snape knew exactly why her potion had changed, and Snape knew this. Suppressing the temptation to slap the smirk from his mouth, she told him about the wrong bottles, her stomach dropping in embarrassment.

"Perhaps an essay from you too then, Miss. Granger. Hmm.. perhaps on the properties of the batswing powder. How it is extracted? Which potions it is highly useful in? And why it had this effect on your potion? To be handed in at your detention tomorrow," Snape turned back towards the head of the classroom, sweeping away from her cauldron without another word.

Hermione puffed with indignation. After all her effort not to screw up, she grabbed the wrong bottle. Fortunate for her, the bell rang not long after. She cleaned up her dismal attempt at the both and headed for the Great Hall, more out of habit than hunger. She would eat quickly then head straight to the library, knowing already it was going to be a late night finishing off this essay, catch-up on Arithmancy, and doing her other homework also.

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The library was near empty, not a strange phenomenon, she normally had her pick of the best library tables, and the warmest spots. Being a Monday night, it was unlikely to get any fuller, many students leaving their assessments until the last minute.

Harry and Ron had opted to stay late at dinner and finish their essays in the common room, knowing she needed the quiet to work. Not to mention her bad mood had slightly scared them off. Snape had been making it a habit from the start of the year to make her life a living hell.

Hermione sat, like a tailor, in a far table away from the library doors, heightening her chances of not being disturbed. Starting with her Potions essay, she pulled one of her gathered texts before her, and began to read.

She had been sitting a long time, her neck joints aching from pouring over books for hours. She essay was near complete, but there was something missing, something she knew she had to add. But it wasn't here in any of the textbooks she had.

Rising with frustration, she set of prowling around the bookshelves. She was the only student left in the library except a group of Ravenclaws, also in seventh year; probably being ridden as hard as her by their teachers.

Her search took her near the back of the library, a section she didn't go to often, in fact, no-one went there often. She came to a pile of texts and loose parchment that was decaying with age. She carefully fumbled through the parchment, search through a huge pile for the one she seeked. A small notebook slipped to the floor, in a clumsy attempt to catch the book she dropped all the loose sheets, disheveling their order.

Grunting in frustration with herself, she knelt to collect the parchment, slowly reordering them. Her only luck being that she managed to find the sheet she had been looking for.

As she set the sheets back in their shelving order, she was left with a loose sheet in one hand, and the notebook in the other. The notebook looked old, quite old, at least twenty-odd years. Flicking quickly through it, she found it was a research log, for Potions she assumed by the diagrams and tables of ingredients.

An odd place for someone to leave their notebook, she thought. But perhaps they had been looking for the same loose parchments she was, and had left it their by mistake. Perhaps the owner had some notes for her essay in their. Shrugging, she took the book back to her table, took up the loose parchment, and went back to her essay, the notebook almost gone from her memory.

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It wasn't until lunch the next day, as Hermione was pulling her Arithmancy notes from her book-bag, in the hope of studying them as she ate that she accidentally pulled the old notebook from her bag. Gasping softly, she realised that she must have grabbed the notebook from the library when she finished working, not even realising she had.

She turned the small pad over in the hands, examining it, trying to find a clue as to whom it may have belonged. Probably a student long since gone from Hogwarts. Opening the book, she examined the neat tables of ingredients, set in a scratching scrawl, as if the author were trying to fit as much information on each page as was possible, yet it didn't appear to be over-crowed or poorly organised. Oddly, she found the writing familiar, but she wasn't exactly sure from where.

Flicking back to the beginning, she checked in the front inside cover, where she normally wrote her name on her notebooks. There was nothing. Shrugging, she turned her attention to the front page, and began studying the writer's largely informative notes.

Time got away from her once more, and she physically dropped the note book when the end-of-lunch bell rang. Sighing, she realised she hadn't eaten a thing, so engrossed in the notes she had been.

Bending down to pick up the pad, she paused, shocked. Scrawled across the bottom corner, at the back inside cover of the book were two words.

Severus Snape.

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End Chapter.

_To my readers, I beg critique,_

_Elle._


	2. So I Thought

His Secrets: Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Not mine, never mine. I dedicate the plotline to J.K. Herself.

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Chapter Two: So I Thought

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Hermione spent the rest of the day with a secret knowledge hiding inside her book-bag. She was at a lost at what to do. She could give the book back to Snape? Or she could put it back on the shelf where she found it? Or she could just keep it, was her final thought. Even if just for the rest of the day, just to read it through, and it see what was inside. Snape was a _Potions Master_, he definitely knew enough about Potions, and his notes were far easier to read in their condensed form than the huge volumes on Potions she had been taking out from the library.

So there it sat, in her book-bag. She had been reading it ever chance she got, it was so consuming. The techniques and ingredients Snape had worked with were inspired, things she had never thought of, and had certain never read about it any text books. He truly was a Master of the art. But his writing went all over the place, extra notes here, and extra notes there, sometimes not even relevant to the subject of the pages. At was almost as if Snape had been making notes randomly every time he thought of something.

In fact, Hermione was so engrossed in the notebook that she was almost late for Snape's detention.

It seemed she was running late for everything these days.

She arrived five minutes late, to find Snape waiting at his desk in the dungeon.

"Miss. Granger, late, I see. May I ask what detained you?" Snape drawled, hardly even bothering to look up from the notes he was making.

Hermione was certainly not about to tell him why she was late, instead she chose to remain silent, glaring at him.

Snape looked up when she didn't answer, his eyes narrowed.

"Take a seat," he spat, his anger levels clearly rising.

"Yes, sir," Hermione nodded, taking a table near the front of the room, knowing Snape would not allow her to sit anywhere but right under his nose.

Snape said nothing at first, finishing off the sentence he was scrawling. He rose swiftly, his robes billowing around him, in a dramatic effect that almost made Hermione roll her eyes. Did he think he could scare her with his intimidating clothing and cold stare? It may have worked during her first year, but now in her seventh, she was not so easily intimidated.

Snape stopped in front of her desk, her hand extended. Hermione handed him her essay. Snape skimmed it quickly with his eyes, his expression still sour.

Hermione waiting, wondering what on earth he would make her do for her detention.

Slowly, Snape placed the roll of parchment on his desk, and turned back to her, his expression blank of any emotion over his quick read of her essay. This irked Hermione, it was a good essay, and Snape knew it. She had worked hard on it, not wanting to give Snape a chance to ridicule even a word of it.

"So," Snape began, walking to his store cupboard, and retrieving an old volume. "We shall begin your detention then. Now, your potion yesterday was atrocious, and I know you know why. My goal is to make sure it does not happen again. It is beyond me to deny that you have a certain talent with Potions..."

Hermione froze in her seat. Did Snape just say she had talent? Surely, she was hearing things.

Snape continued, ignoring her expression, "... And so, I and going to test your skills beyond what they have been tested in the classroom. And in these, you cannot lose concentration as you did in our previous lesson. You will work hard, harder than you have had to in any Potions class. And I expect you to succeed, do you hear me, Miss. Granger?"

Hermione gulped slightly as the full weight of Snape's glare came down on her. He was positions over her table, his hands resting on its edges, his eyes penetrating hers in a look that made her feel as if no-one had ever looked at her before... before now.

She nodded. "Professor, what exactly am I going to be doing?"

"Making potions, you daft girl," Snape told her, his tone mocking. He was pacing in front of her, playing with the old volume now. "Set yourself up, you may use my stores, for I do not believe you will have many of the ingredients."

Hermione got her cauldron out, her silver knife and her potions kit, arranging it all to her liking. She set a fire below her cauldron and looked back at Snape, would sat on one of the tables, observing her with shrewd eyes.

"And what potion will I be preparing, Professor?" Hermione was a little nervous now. Snape had said it would be hard. She didn't find the classes particularly hard, but they weren't all that easy either. What was she about to get into?

Snape flipped through the pages of the volume, laying it flat before her, his long index finger indicating the title of the potion before her.

"Sentio Incendia," he told her, his voice dramatically lowered.

Hermione looked at him, a little confused. "Judge's fire, sir?"

Snape sat back, observing her once more, a smirk across his face. It seemed as if he was daring her, testing her grit. It almost appeared he believed she would refuse. And that she should. She had heard of his potion, Judge's Fire. It was ancient, aging all the way back to the Middle Ages coming from the time of Pepin the Short, father to the great Emperor Charlemagne himself. It wasn't originally known as Judge's Fire, but as '_Nex Incendia_', or Death's Fire, but it was changed around the thirteenth century by an old Potions Master whom manufactured the potion and sold it to peasants whom had been wronged by the authorities in their area. The legend said that Farangir, the Old Potions Master, had lost his wife to muggle invaders, who had raped and killed her, and had forced him from his home by taking his children. He had wanted revenge and had began traveling and selling his potion.

And now Snape wanted her to make it. Was he insane? The potion wasn't illegal, but that was only because no-one had made it in so long, it was practically written out of the potions books. She had stumbled across it while writing an essay for Snape in her fourth year. She had been allowed into the restricted section. Snape must have either borrowed a book from the restricted section, or he actually owned books on potions such as these.

She had an inkling it was the latter.

"Well, Miss. Granger," Snape circled her table, coming up behind her, his eyes on the book. "Shall we begin?"

"We...?" Hermione began before she could stop herself.

"Yes, Granger. The potion requires to individuals, if you read the first paragraph. Now follow the instructions and do as I say, when I say. If we mess this up, it would be incredibly dangerous."

Nodding, Hermione's eyes skimmed the ingredients list, and the summarised method. It was complicated, very complicated. Worry began creeping up on her. Was this too advanced for her? What was Snape getting her into?

"Are you ready to proceed?" Snape queried, the daring back in his eyes.

Hermione felt the determination in her to prove to Snape that she was better than even he thought. "Yes."

"So I thought."

* * *

END CHAPTER.

A/N: To my reviewers, Jasmine-leigh, Heidi191976, Angelic Bladez, Lovelace's Amarantha, Madhatter45, texfreelancer00, TCFellows, and RobotsMakeBetterLovers, thank you for your words, and critique. Esp. Madhatter45, you were the only one to notice the Severus Snape mistake, thanks. I've fixed it now.

More critique, even keeps me going.

Note: I have also began my own Harry Potter Fanfiction forum, where people can advertise their fanfiction, review others, get recommended, be sorted into a Harry Potter House, join in competitions, and loads of other features. Come check us out at: thebookshelf.

If the link doesn't work, you can find it set as my homepage on my profile.

Yours,

_-Elle._


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